


You Can Be Me When I'm Gone

by fairbreeze



Series: Ternary Logic [2]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-05
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-07 12:16:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1898658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairbreeze/pseuds/fairbreeze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when all of your math turns to subtraction and all of your statements return to True/False?</p><p>(This whole work contains potential spoilers for anything after Old Oak Doors, Part B.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This definitely takes place in the same alternate universe as "Ternary Logic". I don't think it's wholly _necessary_ to have read it, though it does reference it. 
> 
> The title is taken from a line from "The Kindly Ones" by Neil Gaiman. If you want to read something into that, you're welcome to, but I just really liked the line in conjunction with this story. (Also, read The Sandman. If you are into Welcome to Night Vale, you will like it.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cecil isn't the only person he needs to call.
> 
> Spoilers for Old Oak Doors, Part B.

“Earl. Hi. Sorry I missed you too, but I guess you’re probably leading some of the Scouts against the— oh hey, I’ve got another. Oh!” there was a laugh, a click, and he managed to switch calls.

“Carlos! You’re safe, thank the gods. Where are you?” He couldn’t help but smile just a little at the excitement running underneath the worry in Earl’s voice. 

“That’s… what I was calling about. Look, I already called Cecil, but I had to leave a message. I’m not even sure I’m calling to the same… whens. Time is _so_ weird, both here and in Night Vale and I don’t know… I don’t know what that’s going to mean.” There was a moment of silence. He could almost, but not quite, hear Earl _get_ it, slow. Stop walking.

“Something went wrong. You’re still on the—“

“—Other side of the doors, yes. But my cell phone works and I have plenty of battery power and I’m—“

“—Terrified,” Earl finished for him and Carlos didn’t agree, but he didn’t refute it, either.

“I left a happier message for Cecil,” a pause, amendment, “I _tried_ to leave a happier message for Cecil, but… Earl… The light is still coming in this world. I’m with the giant, masked warriors, the ones who are left, and we are on the move. It isn’t hopeless. I’ll think—I’ll think of something. But that _light_ …”

“Carlos…” 

“That light is growing stronger. We’re walking ahead of it and I don’t think we are in immediate danger but it is still growing stronger faster than we are walking, now. Slowly faster,” he added, quickly, “but faster all the same. And when it touches things they grow transparent and—“

“Forget.”

“Forget.” He agreed, the word simple and unadorned by inflection over the phone. “So I’m working as fast and as hard as I can. Whatever laws govern the doors and the connection between Night Vale and wherever this place is don’t seem to…” and, for the first time, he had to take a moment to finish, to collect himself, “They don’t seem to think Night Vale is my home. And… scientifically speaking, it’s—“

“Shut up.”

“Earl, the laws of the universe are—“

“ _Shut. Up._ ” Earl’s voice clearly did all kinds of interesting things when he was angry, “Screw science. Screw _laws_. You break the law all the time,” he lowered his voice, hissed, “you own _pens_. You keep finding exceptions to all the rules you know. You’ve said on more than one occasion that that’s what Night Vale _is_ , that it doesn’t follow the rules, that it’s made up of all the exceptions, in ways that don’t make sense.”

“You… remembered I said that? You _listened_ to me saying all of that?”

“Carlos… I always listen to you.” 

For a moment, there was silence, broken only by a slight sound as Carlos’s fingers tightened on the phone.

“Look, I don’t know anything about Science, and I don’t _need_ to know. You _belong_ here. This is your _home_. I know you like to overthink things, but this one is simple. The doors weren’t looking at where you _belong_ , they were just looking at where you’re _from_. You can’t change where you’re from. But you get to choose your home and _this_ is your home. And it is waiting for you. And if you forget, it will… _we will_ be here to remind you.”

“… Earl. Thank you. I’m going to try everything I can think of to get back to you. _Both_ of you. But… it might take a while. Longer—“ he broke off again, took another breath, “Longer than I might have indicated to Cecil. And I don’t _know_ right now, if… I mean, I _will_ make it back of course, I will be fine, but…”

“Carlos…” it sounded slightly like a warning, like Earl knew what it he was going to say before he said it and didn’t want to hear it, but he had to say it, and maybe, just maybe, Earl knew that too.

“If I don’t come back,” _when I don’t come back_ , “take care of Cecil for me. And _yourself_. I know you. You’re going to drown yourself in guilt. Please don’t. Please? I don’t want you to feel guilty for having something I can’t have, or for getting what you’ve want—”

“It’s not what I want anymore. “

“What?” his momentum was broken.

“Cecil isn’t… Cecil isn’t the _only_ …” a pause, short, but significant, “You’re coming back. I’ll keep an eye on things here for you, but _you are coming back_. Try… try not to get yourself killed,” he finished, softly, like an echo.

“I will,” a smile, “I understand,” and he did, this time, “I have to get moving, but I’ll call you as soon as I can, I promise.”

“Okay. I’ll be waiting.” There was a pause, significant, before the line went dead, a space in which a set of three words could have been traded, but weren’t. It wasn’t an empty silence, though, or a fumbled one. It was a silence that contained those words, and others—too many to fit into the end of a phone call, too many to be said when their speakers were so impossibly far apart.

But they both understood them.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos did call, when he could. It just became clear very quickly that that him calling was not going to be enough.
> 
> Or-- Earl tries to steady an orbit suddenly missing one of it's planets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think some of this was negated by the most recent episode (#52) but it was written before that, just needed editing, and it was relatively minor, so I left it. :3
> 
> Spoilers through episode #51, Rumbling.

Carlos did call, when he could. It just became clear very quickly that that him calling was not going to be enough.

At first, everything seemed normal. At first, everything _was_ normal. In fact, for the first few days everything was _better_ than normal and Earl understood what Carlos had meant on the phone, when he had told him not to feel guilty. He _did_ miss Carlos, but Cecil _exploded_ with life those first few days, so happy to have his town back, unaware that Carlos would not be returning within a number of days, exultant and back to how things were before Strex ever darkened their doorstep. His excitement and enthusiasm spilled over to _every_ area of his life, until Earl just took to wearing high collared and long-sleeved shirts to hide the bruises, despite the desert heat.

As one week tipped over into two, though, things began to change. It was slow at first; there was no immediate shift, nothing Earl could put his finger on. But there was a difference— less of being coerced into bed before he could even finish dinner, letting Cecil fuck him warm and slow into a messy heap on the mattress and more of getting pressed up against walls and the recipient of greedy, hungry, _harsh_ little kisses, lips bitten and buttons lost. It was a little strange to have Cecil _always_ be so aggressive, but it wasn’t as though Earl _minded_. He only didn’t reciprocate in kind because Cecil was _so_ enthusiastic that he didn’t get a chance to. He liked it. He said so, he fed it, and, at first, though he noticed the shift, he didn’t know there was anything _wrong_.

By the end of week two, though, when Cecil went from walking in the door to sucking Earl’s cock almost before the sound of the door closing faded and definitely before Earl could even so much as get out a “Welcome home”, it started to seem a little… _desperate_. And once he started to look for it, the desperation was _everywhere_ , the attempt of a man to fill an unfillable void with… something. _Anything_. There was a time when Earl might have convinced himself that he was just a stand in for Carlos, a choice made because the chooser couldn’t have the thing they wanted. But he’d spent enough time being spectacularly loved by two gorgeous, wonderful partners that he knew better. He _was_ a stand in, of a sort, but it wasn’t Carlos he was standing in for. He was a placeholder for an _idea_ , a feeling, security. He was something to hold on to, to stave off the feeling of something missing, a feeling he had too, even with Cecil there.

The situation was neither stable nor tenable for either one of them, not really, but Earl also _understood_. He understood and he let Cecil cover him in bruising kisses, leave the marks of his fingers on his skin because he needed to hold _something_ , convince himself that something was real and here and _his_. Earl held him, too, afterwards, whispering gentle words of assurance that he was there, that he was alive, that they were both alive. 

That they were _all_ alive. 

The fourth week, it occurred to Earl that Carlos had not actually called _him_ , not even once, and several of the main dishes at Tourniquet for the next three days involved either things needing to be mashed or things needing to be set on fire and then, when both Cecil and he had a “weekend” that coincided, he met Cecil in whatever dark place he was in and there was no comforting, no whispering words curled into safe cocoons. They had sex on every available surface in the house and a few he was pretty sure were imaginary. None of it was pretty, or kind. They woke the neighbors howling and screaming and marked every last inch of the other’s skin like maybe, if they could just cover the other person in scratches and bruises and _proof_ , they wouldn’t lose anything else. 

On Wednesday morning, Earl dragged his aching, bruised body out of bed and made two cups of honeyed tea and a simple breakfast for two, served on a tray in bed. Sitting propped up on the pillows, surrounded both by half destroyed bedcovers and fluffy domesticity, he felt a weird sort of peace, something he saw reflected back in Cecil’s expression. Earl couldn’t help but reach for him and Cecil’s face felt like it fit perfectly in his palm, their kisses softer, _sweeter_ than they had been in a while, until Cecil pulled back laughing, genuine and beautiful, even though his voice cracked a little around the edges with strain. The laugh lasted only a moment before his face slid back into a sort of pensive melancholy. Earl opened his mouth to ask, but Cecil beat him to it, 

“It was Carlos and I’s anniversary,” it would have seemed sudden, but they both knew this was the explanation that Earl had been waiting on for weeks, the reason why everything had shifted. He nodded, slightly, permission to continue, though it was obvious Cecil didn’t really need it.

“The night I came into the restaurant, even without a reservation,” he clarified and it took Earl only a moment to place it. He tried to listen to Cecil’s show whenever it was on, but he couldn’t afford the distraction in the kitchen. Too much could go entirely too wrong. So he hadn’t heard him talking about having difficulty getting a table at Tourniquet. He’d just known that Cecil had turned up and there hadn’t been any tables available and they’d nearly turned him away before someone had clued Earl in to what was going on.

The kitchen wasn’t the most pleasant place to eat dinner, but Earl had enough clout to get a little table set up out of the way for Cecil and was skilled enough to work one tiny dish after another onto said little table in between other orders. Cecil had spent the whole evening either smiling at Earl like he couldn’t believe he was so lucky or looking like he was about to cry. He hadn’t talked about it later that night and Earl hadn’t asked—but looking back on it, if he had to pick a point after which Cecil’s enthusiasm started to turn to something darker, unhealthy, that would definitely be the night.

“It took him a whole year to say anything and then the next year he’s… he was… Time works differently, there but he didn’t… No one knew. No one _remembered_ ,” Earl wanted to protest that he hadn’t been told, that if he had… but Cecil followed up, suddenly, with, “I… am not a hero, Earl,” and before Earl could switch gears and protest _that_ instead, or even just ask where it had come from, he kept going, “I’m always… I’m always just left… holding things, while other people _do_ things. I thought it would be _neat_ , to know someone who was a hero, but it’s not. I don’t want Carlos to be a hero, or a scientist, if it means he has to be one in a desert far away from me. From _us_. And yet, I don’t mean that either, because those things are what he is, and he is someone I love and I—“

“Cecil…” Earl managed, cupping his hands around the outside of Cecil’s hands, which were in turn gripping onto his mug of tea as though the heat seeping through could solve everything. But Cecil was on a roll, words spilling from his mouth, uncontrolled, clearly something he had been bottling up, that bruising kisses took the place of saying.

“I just don’t want to be left holding any more trophies, wondering if I’ll ever get to hand them to someone. I want to _have_ something,” Earl was pretty sure he felt something shift in his expression at the wording, but Cecil didn’t seem to notice, “Something that’s real, and _here_ and _mine_ and I…” Cecil suddenly seemed to _see_ him, in the torrent of words and misery, and his own expression softened with guilt, “I’ve been _horribly_ unfair to you, haven’t I?” Earl no longer knew what the expression was on his face at all, but Cecil just kept going, “I mean, _you’re_ real, and here, and mine and I—“ there was probably an end to that sentence but sometimes actions spoke louder than words and Earl didn’t think he could stand to hear the apology he could hear starting. So he kissed Cecil until they both needed to breathe, instead.

“First of all,” he said as soon as he gasped in a breath, because otherwise Cecil would start talking again, “don’t apologize for anything you’ve done the last few weeks. In fact, _please_ keep doing what you’ve been doing the last few weeks. Maybe not so much the last 36 hours or so, I’m not sure that I could survive that if it was continuous, but _gods_ the last few weeks have been _amazing_ ,” he could feel his cheeks flushing at talking about that so openly, but it was worth it for the look on Cecil’s face, “Second, don’t apologize for missing someone who’s not here, just because someone else _is_. I am not Carlos. You are not Carlos. I want him to come home too, but that doesn’t mean that I care any less for you. You want him home— _we_ want him home— and he’s being an ass in the way only Carlos can be an ass. He’s coming home,” Earl added a moment later, “This is just like a day where he gets caught up at the lab and forgets you have dinner plans, it’s just… longer. But _he’s coming home_ ,” Earl wasn’t the one with the magic voice, but he put a little extra emphasis behind it, like he could make it real by saying it, “And until then you _do_ have me,” he leaned in and left a slow trail of soft kisses down Cecil’s neck until he could get to one spot he knew was particularly sensitive. It was easy to find, the area mottled from a less tender kiss a few hours before. The little gasp Cecil made on the heels of a hard shudder was one of Earl’s favorite noises and it was even better paired with a soft whine a moment later, when Earl slid his hand up the inside of Cecil’s thigh, even with the covers in the way. “Besides,” he intoned, overly grave, “I promised a certain scientist I would take _very_ good care of you until he got home.”

To be fair, that wasn’t _exactly_ what he had promised Carlos on the phone several weeks prior, but it was close enough and it was what Cecil needed to hear.

“Earl…” the kiss was soft and slow and _grateful_ , and Earl could feel the tension—in Cecil, between them, hovering in the room—melt away, “Thank you. I love you.”

“I… I love you too,” he wasn’t used to saying it, still kind of came up short on it every time, but it wasn’t because he didn’t mean it. It was because he had meant it his entire life but he was used to swallowing it, not being _allowed_ to say it. He buried his face against Cecil’s shoulder to hide the blush and felt him shift. He didn’t realize what was happening until he heard the soft clatter of plates and realized Cecil had set the tray aside. A moment after that, he was being pressed down into the sheets, without urgency, just warm kisses and curled limbs and soft pillows. 

For the first time in four weeks, there were no ghosts in the room to watch them.

(Except, of course, for the regular ones from the City Council mandated “Stop Ghost Homelessness” program. But they didn’t count.)


End file.
